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I don't expect the live-action stuff to act like every novel is canon
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If you expect the live-action stuff to act like
any novel is canon, you're holding them to a higher standard than you have ever held any work of
Star Trek. By this standard, you must hate on every single episode
Trek produced after
Spock Must Die! for disrespecting the non-canon.
It's non-canon. It is not part of the universe. Period. Full stop.
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but there are certain things that most fans can agree on as being very nice ideas.
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...such as?
I'll give you "Yesteryear," though even that is controversial.
The recent "novel franchises" are not only the worst thing to happen in the history of
Trek novel writing, on account of being not merely inexcusable dreck, but
inextricably interconnected inexcusable dreck -- they're
also contradictory of all the "good stuff" from previous non-canon romps. And said franchises tend to contradict each other
anyway. And the fans don't agree about
any of it being good, each supporting his own favored camp or none at all. (Extra credit challenge: find a
New Frontier fan. Find a Shatnerverse fan. Provoke a fight between them. Enjoy. For extra extra fun, involve someone who thought that any
Next Gen book released since
Nemesis came out was a good idea. Then get popcorn.)
Bottom line is, you're not angry at the filmmakers for disrespecting canon. You're not even angry at them for ignoring the big pile of inconsistent sludge that is the non-canon. You're angry at them for failing to have a vision of the universe that is perfectly consistent with your own, personal, extra-canonical, one-man interpretation of the
Star Trek universe. In short: you're a fanboy. And, like all fanboys, you are incapable of absorbing change, for no other reason than that it is change. Had you been born in 1963 instead of 1993, you would have hated
Next Gen for its inexcusable depredations against your beloved TOS vision.
IMHO, that is. It certainly seems that way to me (strongly), but, as in all things, I could be wrong.
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And I maintain my position that the creators felt that they can create a "better" universe.
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That's my Nate. Never let evidence stand in the way of a good conviction.
The creators felt that they didn't have the necessary room to dramatically maneuver in the Prime timeline. They made a difficult decision to split off a new history, but were not willing to destroy the very great good that was the Prime timeline -- and insisted on linking the two together at the very root of the new timeline. They pray every day that their new timeline will measure up to the old one. With
Star Trek '09, they're off to a very good start.